However, this did not stop anybody from starting. Davy and Billy had the gold fever bad. Even Mr. Shields had decided to take his wife and baby and leave the ranch for the diggings, where he counted on making more money in a week than he could make here in a year. So Davy only waited on Billy, to start, himself. “Shucks!” exclaimed Billy, in May. “I’ve got to quit, Dave, and go on the trail again. Mother said last night ‘All right.’ She’ll let me go. She needs the money and I’ll send her back a lot. Come on. We’ll raise a gang and start.” “When, Billy?” “Right away, as soon as we get the men and the outfit. This green grass makes me restless. Got any money left, Dave? We have to buy a wagon and team.” Yes, Davy had almost all his herding wages on deposit with Mr. Majors. He was proud to say so, and to be able to pay his own way. IX THE HEE-HAW EXPRESS Now Billy wasted no time with the preparations. That was his style. The Reverend Mr. Baxter, who had been ill in Leavenworth, and so had not started before, promptly agreed to join the party. He and Billy and Dave clubbed together with an outfit that Billy knew. These were Jim Barber and Hi Wilson and another man called “Left-over Joe.” Jim and Hi had been teamsters with Russell, Majors & Waddell bull trains; but “Left-over Joe” seemed to be nobody in particular――and that is why they nicknamed him “Left-over Joe.” A big emigrant outfitting camp had been established in the Salt Creek Valley near the Cody home, and while Jim and Hi were here getting ready to move on, this lean, lank, very long-necked hobbledehoy of squeaky voice and nineteen or twenty years had wandered into their camp and adopted them. So they let him stay. Jim and Hi had a team of mules: Billy and Dave and Mr. Baxter added an old light wagon. The party thought themselves lucky, for oxen had risen in price to $175 and $200 a yoke, and mules and horses were scarcer yet. Wagons were scarce, too. By the time that the supplies of salty pork and beans and flour and coffee had been laid in for “grub,” and picks and spades and gold-pans for digging out the gold and separating it, and ammunition for killing game and fighting Indians, Davy’s money was about gone. However, that did not matter. They all would find gold enough to last them the rest of their lives! Billy owned the Mississippi “yager” smoothbore musket and the two Colt’s navy revolvers that he had used when in the mule fort. He gave Davy one of the revolvers. With it belted at his waist, Davy felt like a regular scout indeed. Hi and Jim also owned guns. Hi’s was a yager similar to Billy’s. Jim’s was a heavy Sharp’s “Old Reliable” rifle, of fifty calibre holding six cartridges underneath, and one in the breech. It was a tremendously hard-shooting gun. Whoever had a Sharp’s “Old Reliable” had the best gun on the plains.